Another data manipulation affair in Poland, already a third case on my site. First one was a grand scandal in biomedicine reported to me by no less than three independent whistleblowers, and now, after the Gregory Franklin farce in Poznan it’s again plant sciences, this time in Wroclaw. A total train wreck of a paper was recently discussed on PubPeer, by a certain reader of my site with a keen interest in plant sciences. It stemmed from the Institute of Experimental Biology at the University of Wroclaw in Poland, where its first author, Dr Magdalena Migocka is apparently a shooting star of plant sciences. She won her first prestigious research grant in 2010, just 3 years after completing PhD, and has been publishing in respected plant science journals ever since. Now questions about the secret to Migocka’s remarkable productivity arise. The PubPeer disputed paper, not even 4 years old, proved such a little total rascal, that Smut Clyde commented on Twitter:

“Figure 6 needs to sit in the corner and think about what it did wrong”

“Thank you for your comments. They are very valuable. When you work in a team it is sometimes difficult to control all the results obtained from each co-author. The confusion regarding spot-test is related with control plates. As we usually grow a set of different strains on one control plate in rows close to each other (we use the whole plate) and they look pretty similar it is easy to make mistake while cutting out a few rows for the final picture. However, the original photographs for these experiments show that all the strains grew actually well in controls.

As for the data from Western blots and organ expression analysis, they were all performed by our PhD student, and the biggest problem with them was the very low quality due to weak signals. Hence the author tried to increase the exposure and contrast and select the results that had the strongest signal. When we analyzed the raw data, they confirm the results presented in this work, however the students admits that she cut some bands from different membranes to obtain the best data in one final Figure. The student claims the results are reliable. Nevertheless, we don’t practice this kind of Figure preparation yet.”

See, a scientist shows determination, acts swiftly to interrogate a student, makes her confess, analyses the raw data and establishes that the main findings remain unchanged, all in the matter of two and a half hours. There was however another problematic paper by Dr Migocka, where such figure preparation was practised even two years later.

M. Migocka , A. Papierniak , A. Rajsz

Cucumber PDR8/ABCG36 and PDR12/ABCG40 plasma membrane proteins and their up-regulation under abiotic stresses

“Thank you very much for this comment, I will try to clarify this situation with the author of the image.”

Expect more student confessions.

The last author of the first paper, Migocka et al 2015, is Sophie Filleur, tenured scientist at the CNRS Institute for Integrative Cell Biology in Paris, France. Yet the corresponding author is Migocka, all other coauthors come from Wroclaw. The PI of the lab where Filleur works wrote to me:

“The publication contains alarming data manipulation. Our team hosted the first author/corresponding author on the publication to perform the experiment presented on Fig 5A and 5B (confocal microscopy) under the supervision of Sophie Filleur. All the other experiments were performed in the corresponding author’s university under the corresponding author’s supervision. I discussed the matter with Sophie Filleur. She admitted that she should have checked more carefully all the figures of the paper before publication.

We have immediately contacted the corresponding author asking her to retract the publication.”

Right after her superior replied to me, Filleur posted raw data on PubPeer. Indeed, the figures were assembled from bits and pieces, while the editors, reviewers and readers were left believing they were looking at intact gels.

Meanwhile in Poland things were moving swiftly. Migocka’s Head of Department (and her former MSc and PhD thesis advisor!) Grazyna Klobus announced to me that she supports Filleur’s request for retraction:

“I have also contacted with dr Migocka and she informed me that is going to retract both papers immediately.”

There might be more trouble. This was Migocka’s first last author paper, and also that one contains duplicated data. A gel was reused for unrelated samples:

Maybe you have a deja-vu when looking at this fabricated Figure 1C in Migocka et al 2011? This is because the bands re-appeared in the Figure 5 of the disastrous Migocka et al 2015 paper in same Journal of Experimental Botany, discussed in the beginning. Turned out, Figure 5 was even faker than we originally thought! It also contains elements from the Figure 4 from yet another paper, again in same journal: Migocka et al 2014, where Filleur is incidentally also last author.

More student interrogation, presumably. Dr Migocka must also determine who faked the gel in the Figure 3 of this paper:

A gel was reused for different samples, with brightness slightly changed, likely to hide similarity. And what happened to Figure 4? JBC has retracted papers for less…

My reader, who assembled all this material decided to make the experience interactive. He invites you to study the Figure 5 of Migocka et al JBC 2015 paper:

“Figure 5A is just incredible, I’m not annotating it, I’d rather leave it for your readers to find out how creative Migocka can be with blots. I can’t even imagine what she’s up to with bar plots”.

Use the comment section to tell what’s wrong with this figure, and you might win a signed retraction JBC notice by Dr Migocka!

But maybe that was all in the past, as Dr Migocka said? All good and honest, now that a full professorship is within reach? How sure is Adjunct faculty member Dr Migocka that her students “don’t practice this kind of Figure preparation” anymore? This was namely published just this year:

Obviously some gel bands from an unrelated experiment were reused in a different paper for different samples. The gel originally appeared in Migocka et al Plant Journal 2018, though what samples those originally was showing is anyone’s guess now. After all, if it’s the same antibody, and all bands look similar, does it really matter which samples the gel originally contained? Why wasting reagents on experiments one just knows the result of anyway? This is the 2019 paper which adopted the 2018 figure:

Maybe department head Professor Klobus should outsource the investigation of her mentee Migocka, to unbiased experts, ideally from abroad? Before more students are made to confess everything?

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Sloppy student…probably because the person running the lab and getting the grants did absolutely nothing to train people properly. Thats how labs work these days…the “advisor” gets angry when they are expected to actually help someone in the lab. So much for learning in academia

Getting angry is nothing to do with Photoshop fabrication. There are excellent supervisors/advisors, who are not sitting on the shoulders of their postdocs, and the lab still works. Doing PhD or postdoc is not the same as doing a BSc or MSc. So, a PhD student/postdoc is expected to have the skill to do a WB without standing the boss behind him/her. So do not blame the advisor if the WB does not work and or you chose Photoshop to help you out. But in my opinion, if a WB is Photoshopped, the boss knows it. Period.

Yes and…no. Having been nearly caught out myself recently (and two other eagle eyed colleagues similar fooled by the name ;data’) I have to agree with @owlbert. We do not have photoshop. But nonetheless a PhD student did make up some blots, something that I did not think would happen in the group. I only discovered the issue because I used a different OS to print, which showed up one fabrication very clearly.

So it will not always be the PI, but in the case of serial fraud, where the PI is also defensive and shifts the blame, then the PI is to blame.

Even in the case in my lab, I do lay part of the blame on my own shoulders, though I do not see how the problem could have been avoided. We cover fraud in lab meetings, data are sacrosanct and all experience in the lab are deemed to ‘work’ since we learn from them.

For God’s sake! Where was the autor’s superior and publication’s co-authors at that time, doesn’t anyone read it? I don’t even mention the reviewers! Publish or perish, huh?! The whole institute had a huge push to publish at all costs, and now such surprise! One good thing we’ve GUILTY of this FRAUD, the rest of you can sleep peacefully, right?? No, not so fast there – the truth is, you all have dirty hands, each and every one of you! You know what I’m talking about, don’t pretend it’s different. Success has many fathers, fraud is an orphan…

The Journal of Experimental Botany is currently investigating the image issues that have been brought to our attention in accordance with COPE guidelines and will respond in due course. The journal does not allow composite or altered gels/blots/exposures unless the changes are made explicit and reasons for changes are made clear and described in the legend/paper.

I hope we will able to find it in two-three weeks – Dean od the Faculty decided to form a small but formal “committee to investigate the matter”. As I could see there were much more persons involved in preparation of more than one manuscript (5persons are co-authors at least 4 papers). Thus, let’s not speculate now who prepared those Figures. Obviously, the corresponding author takes a full responsibility for everything in the manuscript.

The 2-3 weeks timeframe is too optimistic. I have myself noticed some image irregularities in some articles and notified the authors and the editorial boards. Authors never replied. Editorial boards replied, ensuring me about a proper investigation. And months or years have passed without hearing form them again. These kind of assuring emails are the new rejection letters. This message is generated automatically, please do not reply…….

You know that this “college committee” does not want to explain anything. University of Wroclaw depends only on silencing the case. But I understand that you defend your friend from work. You know well that it has been a secret for a long time, it was a quiet consent.

Just a short comment on the “She won her first prestigious research grant in 2010, just 3 years after completing PhD, and has been publishing in respected plant science journals ever since.” sentence. Iuventus Plus was not really a prestigious grant and aimed at young (below 35 years old) scientists. It jus happenned that polish ministry of science had at that time some money to spend asap and they made this call with minimal requirements – and many young scientists got it. The max. amount was, if I remember correctly, around $50k.

But she has financed some of her suspicious research through the Iuventus Plus grant money. In addition to that, in 2013 she received a Sonata grant with 500,000 PLN, or about $130,000, research money.

The most sad thing is that the University of Wroclaw – does not intend to explain anything. He is currently trying to calm down the matter, “sweep under the carpet”. Unfortunately, people who disagree with this type of practice are brutally silenced….

Dear Leonid Schneider, You are right : I was ask to participate in that Congress having no knowledge about the specific nature of that. Like many much better than me proteomists.
I suppose that it is difficult to find in the Internet that I was not there.
And believe me, the participation in a conference is not especially important in “decoration” of academic CV in biology (maybe in some fields it is important).
Anyway, I understand and support your activity even sometimes it is hard to agree with the form of discussion (and sometimes with overinterpretations).

I am wondering in how many papers there are manipulated figures because Migocka delivered them. I don’t mean the papers that she is a main author, but all the other where she did contribute. I would be very concerned having her on my co-authors list and would investigate the matter. Asking for a source data would be a good start.

You’re absolutely right! Unfortunately, in my opinion, asking for source data may not be enough. The investigation should be started much earlier, ideally with school essays and school papers. Then we should check again all the student’s midterm that Migocka was teaching. @Darek Rakus, all hope in your special committee, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Do you maybe know where to look for the outcome of the investigation made by the internal commitee? I am indirectly bound to this unit and I hope they will really solve the situation as it should be solved- to retract papers is the lowest penalty…

Sooo, there are people claiming that making all this things visible to everyone is ruining somebody? Like someone did it accidentally and is being wrongfully accused for frauding?
At very very least, someone was constantly submiting someone’s else frauding signed with their’s name, taking responsibility for this. It’s (at best cause, the latter case) like big shiny banner ‘I don’t care about quality’. Such person coping with science community ostracism after publishing all this papers? The lowest penatly, I hope.
I don’t see it as ‘ruining’, it’s finally ending astoundingly shameful practice.

@butterflyofchaos
You do? Really?! If this is a real struggle for better science, why not mention the other “Gate”? Let’s take, for instance Klobus Gate (mandatory addition of a supervisor to all articles and sometimes intentionally(sic!) omitting people whose data has been used), Grant Gate (allocating money from received grants to protege staff) and last but not least Paper Gate (obstruction of the publication of articles).

Dear Donie,
you are correct – when investigated, probably every istitution and many people can be associated with some “-gate” scandal.

Nevertheless, mandatory addition as an author might be unethical and is violating publication policy of many journals (where only solid contributions make a person eligible for an authorship); omitting “true” authors for sure is unethical and can be considered IP theft/copyrights infringement; unproper grant money allocation might be misusing of public funds/theft and obstructing publication process might be considered a working ethic/mentor ethic violation – nevertheless, none of these are scientific misconducts.
It doesn’t mean that they are justifiable, but technically shouldnn’t be of concern of a general, scientific audience, as this one is not directly involved nor potentially harmed by such actions. What cannot be said about lying about your data or simply making this data up.

However, if you are aware of actions that you’ve mentioned above, I would advice contacting your university ombudsman or any other proper authority to start a proper investigation as clearly something wrong is hapenning.

“Klobus Gate” is common in Polish academic community, so it should be called “Academia Gate”. It’s a comforting fact that I have never seen it before abroad. On the contrary, tutors have always provided advice without expecting anything in return. However, I remembered from this department the fact that the results of my research or my notes can “disappeared”. There were no guilty ones… Also sad was the fact that when a research topic became interesting, Klobus would pick it up and redirect it to people whom he favoured. In those days, nepotism and “deals” were the everyday thing and I’m afraid that nothing has changed to this day. And what @donniedarko presented in such an overblown tone is mostly known to me from the beginning of my scientific career. Unfortunately, such situations aren’t as tangible as retouched photo or don’tt so affect “science integrity”, so they are often ignored and will probably be everyday in Poland for many years…

@Concerned Citizen – very much to the point! Falsifying data makes the whole idea of scientific work absurd. We are obliged (and payed for) to look for the truth. I do not know, if Mrs. Migocka is to blame. But somebody certainly did it and he/she should be made responsible for such actions. It is generally harmful to the scientific community and can not be tolerated. In this light the reaction of @Caltha palusnrus or @ Donnie Darko shows how little scientific integrity really means in Poland.

Yup. It is important to say that we do not know whether Magdalena Migocka is guilty of all these manipulations (whether she made or suggested to make them), but for sure she is responsible for all the data, as a corresponding author. Therefore, the community should stay vigilante not to let her (or her peers) blame students or in general play the “I-wasn’t-aware-of-all-these” card.

To donnie darko, iwonne and others: I have never met with what you write about, I think they are simply slanderous!!! The time I spent in the Institute during my master’s and doctoral studies was a great time. Professor Kłobus is a wonderful lecturer, always smiling and willing to help, full of interesting ideas and the best expert in his field. Everyone who knows her can confirm this! If it was not for her help and involvement, my doctoral thesis would not be so good, thank you! I regret the fact that the good name of the institute and professor has been tainted with this scandal with the falsification of results, and all this by one black sheep…
If you can not submit to the prevailing rules, it’s your fault! Maybe you just can not be used by scientists and blame everyone around you?

This article has been withdrawn by Magdalena Migocka, Ewelina Posyniak, Ewa Maciaszczyk-Dziubinska, and Anna Kosieradzaka. Anna Papierniak could not be reached. The CsCACS gels in Fig. 3 (A and B) were duplicated. The following were found in Fig. 4. The CsHMA5.1 immunoblot was inappropriately manipulated. Lanes 6 and 7of the CsHMA5.2 immunoblot were duplicated. Lanes 1 and 2 of the PM H-ATPase immunoblot and lanes 6–9 of the PPase immunoblot are the same. Additionally, lane 8of the PM H-ATPase immunoblot was reused in lane 1 of the PPase immunoblot. Lanes 3–6 of the PM H-ATPase immunoblot were rotated 180° and reused as lanes 2–5 of the PPase immunoblot. Finally, the markers were reused between the PM H-ATPase and PPase immunoblots. Fig. 5 (A and B) contained many repeating features. In Fig. 8B, the first four colonies in the dilution series for the upper control CsHMA5.2 were reused in the lower control vector dilution series. Additionally, in the lower control panel, the rightmost in the dilution series was duplicated between vector and CsHMA5.2. Finally, some colonies shown in Fig. 8B and the V-PPase immunoblot in Fig. 9B were previously published in J. Exp. Bot. 2015 66:1001–1015, representing different experimental conditions.

Unfortunately, this is just a small percentage of image manipulations being performed around the world. I have seen a significant amount of altered, doubled or mixed western blot bands. Western blotting is now becoming a meme of science, there is so much crap published, that we shouldn’t even include this technique in our papers, as not only it is a semi-quantitive method, but also a not very reliable one.

Have you considered the theory that the other technologies you consider more reliable are actually impossible to expose as fraudulent without expertise and access to raw data? Do you know how laughably easy it is to fake qRT-PCR data, and nobody will ever notice?

I agree with your point, everything that has to do with numbers and graphs can be easily manipulated. Thinking that way, anything can be a fraud. So maybe a more rigorous check from more than 2-3 editors is necessary. I wonder how such blots passed the editorial control process. Anyway, I am curious if the author suffered any consequences.

@Renate – really? One scientist commits a fraud and the whole institute/department is fired? Even the scientists that did not collaboirate with the fraudster? Can you show some record of this happening in Germany?

Following concerns expressed by a reader, the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Journal of Experimental Botany have taken the decision to retract the following papers. The articles are retracted due to concern over image manipulation and duplication.

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